Aria In A Flat Minor
by LadyLuminol
Summary: And they played and never a sweeter melody was heard... (GSR)


**Aria in A Flat Minor**

**Author:** LadyLuminol

**Rating: **R

**Disclaimer:** Three reasons why I don't own them: i) I'm a poor student, ii) I'm a poor _Canadian_ student, and iii) would I _ever_ pull a stunt like Unbearable?

**Author's Notes:** 'Pologies for not updating in a while—long story short, I've been redoing a six thousand word research paper on toxicology because my sister deleted it. Grr. Anyway, _ici_ is something that came to me in band today (wish us luck for provincials on Thursday!). Enjoy and _voila_!

**.oOo.**

Okay, D, C sharp, B, double F sharp, E, F… No, D, C sharp, double B, F, E, F…

"Grissom! Wait up a second would you?" Sara had chased him the length of the lab, attempting to get his attention. Apparently, among other things, he was a master of the art of ignoring those he did not wish to see.

Could've told myself that, though, instead of proving it over the last five hundred feet. Or the last five years. 

"Yes, Sara? Something I can help you with?" His stiffly formal tone did nothing to avert her annoyance. He turned sharply on his heel, as if he was in the Marines and this was Graduation Day. Tapping his foot impatiently, he waved a file and said, "I have paperwork I need to do."

_Great! Blown off for his least favorite job! Just the ego booster I wanted._

"I wanted to double check that I had the twenty-ninth off. My, uh, cousin's in town, and I promised I'd watch their kids for them," she improvised hastily. Fortunately, improvisation was one of her strong suits.

"Did you send me the paperwork?" he asked with that slight grimace that he reserved for the needless slaughter of innocent forests. "I had to book off that night off, too. We'll be short handed," he continued at her sharp nod. "Must remember to get Catherine to loan me someone…" he trailed off, talking to himself again.

"Is that a yes or a no?" she called after his retreating form. His response was an ambivalent wave of the sheaf of papers in his left hand. "Okay, it's now a yes," she said to no one in particular.

**.oOo.**

She hastily dropped her purse on the kitchen table, knocking her keys to the floor in her haste to get to her sanctuary. Arms windmilling, she skidded around the corner and into her bedroom, grabbing her folio on the way to her clarinet. Reversing the motions, she stopped only long enough to grab her fallen keys and sprint out the door to the practice that she was already twenty minutes late for…

**.oOo.**

"Sorry, everyone!" she called as she jogged into the room at the latest break in the music. "I didn't mean to be late." She dropped her purse for the second time in fifteen minutes, although this time she had the good fortune of not losing her keys again.

"What's your excuse this time, Miss Sidle?" snapped the conductor, a rather aggravating man named Mr. Abrahams. He was famed in the Las Vegas musical community for his intolerance of anything less than perfection, in music or in the players themselves. He had been known to fire musicians on the spot, and often in the middle of a piece. Sara vividly remembered the first time she had been to one of his concerts.

It was her first week in Las Vegas, and she had felt the pull of the music again. Assuaging the hunger, she purchased a ticket to a concert by a conductor she had never heard of, one Mr. Laurence Abrahams. The orchestra had been playing a piece by Stravinsky; the title escaped her now, but the pure emotion of the piece didn't. It had been full of uplifting crescendos and heart-wrenching diminuendos. She felt like the music had taken every human emotion and laid them bare to the core.

_Then, it happened. The entire orchestra had been in the midst of a massive triple forte finale just bars before the end. Suddenly, over the clamor of the competing sounds, two words had drifted. "You're FIRED!" _

Oh, how hard it was not to laugh at the memory! She still treasured it, if only as an example of what not to do. She was abruptly brought back to reality by the insistent tapping of Mr. Abrahams' baton on the top of her stand, neatly knocking her music into her lap.

"I'm waiting, Miss Sidle."

"Well, I had to stay a bit later at work because there was a double murder and there was so much blood to-"

Mr. Abrahams cut her off sharply. "We don't need to hear any more, thank you." She silently giggled; His aversion to blood was nearly as legendary as his aversion to bad musicians. The first time she had had to explain herself, she had went into a little too much detail for his delicate stomach, causing him to nearly lose his lunch on the practice room floor!

"Since you seem to see no need to explain to your supervisor that you have other commitments, perhaps you can play for us the solo that you were supposed to practice." Obligingly, she placed her reed in her mouth and stopped thinking.

It was odd, how the music flowed through her. She didn't need to think about the notes, about the rhythm, even about the need to breathe once in a while. She just played, letting her fingers and her breath speak the words she was too afraid to do herself. Others had spoken in envy of her skill. Mr. Abrahams just rapped her skull with the cork end of his baton and told her she wasn't doing it right, and to do it again.

Two hours later, her eyes were drooping and her embouchure was nearly shot, but she was happy. The concert on the twenty-ninth, her first as first chair of the clarinets, was nearly there, and their pieces were perfect. They were just on the edge between enough practice and too much; the fine edge between interpretation and rote. It was perfect, and she was happy.

She closed her folio with a decisive flick of the wrist, already plotting her bubble bath she would take when she got back to her apartment. Lost in a daydream of soft music, candlelight and strawberry-scented bubbles, she almost missed Mr. Abrahams' approach.

"Miss Sidle… Sara, I have a slight request to make of you." He almost magically appeared over her left shoulder, making her reach for the gun that she had left in her locker at work.

"What! Oh, of course. What it is?"

"I've invited a guest flautist to play in the concert with us. His one condition is that he be allowed to play a duet with a clarinet. A very contrary man-" Sara cut him off at the pass.

"Let me guess. You want me to play with a soloist I've never met, and music I don't know? Are you insane? Just who is this arrogant bastard, anyway?" She raged at this suggestion. _How dare he even try to put me on the spot here!_

"I can't tell you his name; that was the other condition. However, you _will_ play this, or this will be your first and last concert as first chair! Do you know how hard it is to even get this man to _entertain_ the idea of playing a concert? He does maybe three a year!"

"No, I have no idea because _I don't even know who he is!_" she yelled, nearly making one of the flighty violinists drop their case in surprise. Just as she was about to snap her case closed and stalk off in a fit of artistic temperament that she never got to indulge in at the lab, Mr. Abrahams laid a hand on her shoulder. His nearly pathetic appearance almost instantly softened her attitude.

"Please, Sara. For the orchestra. We _need_ this publicity more than you know," tried Mr. Abrahams.

He did NOT just plead with me! I hate it when people do that; I'm a pushover! 

"Alright, alright. I'll do it," she acquiesced, and suddenly came up with a condition of her own. "As long as you don't tell him or anyone else that it will be me. Give him a taste of his own medicine…" she muttered evilly, just picturing the surprise on his pompous face.

Snapping the locks shut, she rose and stalked out of the hall, mentally preparing herself for the biggest performance of her life.

**.oOo.**

It was show time, and Sara had yet to meet this mysterious flautist.

Make that a mysteriously dead flautist if he doesn't show his face in the next five minutes! 

She chanced a peek out the wing curtains to look at the audience. They were all milling about, blissfully ignorant of the turmoil backstage. The women huddled in groups, sipping champagne in glass flutes and comparing their latest purchases of ostentatious and expensive jewelry. The men were much the same, although their conversation centered around the hustle and bustle of the powerful financial world, cigar smoke turning the air around them almost blue.

Behind the curtains was another matter altogether.

String players were running around in circles, calling for resin and tuners and all sorts of useless items. Sara was marginally certain she even heard someone shout an order for a chocolate milkshake, although she was fairly sure that that was not on the required item list. Saxophonists were searching frantically for chip- and crack-free reeds. To Sara's jaundiced eye, it seemed like almost every percussionist had lost at least one mallet, stick or hammer.

And she seemed to be in the center of some odd combination of nerves, nuisance, and Nirvana. Carefully rehearsing only enough to keep her edge sharp and embouchure relaxed, she scanned the wings for an unfamiliar face holding a small case. Restlessly flipping pages to keep from tearing her hair out in frustration, she decided that practicing some improvisation in varying styles might just help her when it was time for her big solo debut.

And then suddenly there were curtain calls and people rushing by to get to the stage before Mr. Abrahams could fire them, and Sara was swept up in the excitement of Opening Night.

**.oOo.**

It was nearly time, and Sara still hadn't found her murder victim…er, duet partner. Frantically searching all of the warm-up rooms and dressing rooms, she looked for any sign of someone she didn't recognize. Finding nothing, she haughtily stalked back to the stage left wing curtain, waiting for her cue. Quietly tuning her instrument, she saw a flash in the wings.

Writing it off as the flat light of her tuner, she prayed to whoever was listening that this flautist wouldn't make her name mud in the tight-knit and quietly vicious musical community. She had the feeling that one of the oboes had inadvertently ostracized herself by holding an eighth rest just a hair too long and throwing off the temperamental cellos for a measure or two. But that was the way of her hidden life, and she wouldn't trade it for all the accepting and boringly non-competitive societies in the world.

Pondering this seeming lack of openness, she was nearly shocked into the unforgivable sin of dropping her instrument when she heard her cue.

**.oOo.**

"Thank you, guests, for your gracious applause," waffled Mr. Abrahams, nervously shuffling his feet. He was cursing the day he ever took Warrick Brown as a student as he prepared to announce the final piece of the night. _I am **such** a dead man after this!_

"Now, I have a very special treat for you. The renowned flautist, Gilbert Grissom, has honored us with his presence tonight. After a little bit of a push, he has agreed to do a duet with another member of the orchestra, first clarinet Miss Sara Sidle." Applause, all the greater for the unexpected treat of hearing the haunting melodies of a master flautist known as much for his music as for his almost hermetically reclusive nature. To tell the truth, in the music community, no one even knew if music was his life or his night-job so to speak. To say that they'd be surprised if they knew what he did for a living would be an understatement along the lines of the atom bomb causing a little spark.

The bastard! He never told! I can't believe he managed to keep it a secret… 

"And without further ado, may I present Gilbert Grissom and Sara Sidle. They will be playing an aria from Pucchini's _Tosca_. Ladies and gentlemen, Gilbert Grissom and Sara Sidle." Quickly, he stepped offstage, averting his eyes from Grissom's. _Hopefully he won't be **too** offended!_

The heavy crimson velvet curtains rose on an empty stage. The audience looked around in confusion, clearly having been expecting two musicians, not a stand with sheet music. And then they heard it.

It was a flute, haunting and daring all in the same note. And then a clarinet, low, mourning the loss of its love. Only the two instruments could be heard, calling to each other in the timeless call of one lover to another. The shadows at the wings rippled, and necks craned to get a glimpse of what was about to happen.

Two figures appeared, solemnly stepping towards the other, eyes locked as if the music was a lifeline back to the surface. They ignored the sheet music, standing facing each other at the front of the stage.

Mentally, they were both gaping. _How did he know?_ was Sara's train of thought. Years ago in San Francisco, before their personal lives got in the way, they had gone to the opera together. The piece had been Pucchini's _Tosca_, and since then, they had always referred to it as 'The Opera'.

Afterwards, Gil had driven Sara home, and walked her to the door of her apartment building like a nervous teenager on a first date. Saying their goodbyes, he had kissed her for the first time that night. The only time. And now they were performing the famous final aria from it, and nothing had ever felt more right.

For what seemed like an age to the audience and a heartbeat to them, they stood facing each other. Their eyes locked, their breathing synchronized, not even their heartbeats spoke of anything more than one person on the stage. The audience was enraptured, caught up in the magic of two masters saying through music what they never could with their words.

And for a moment in time, it was just the two of them.

The end drew nearer and nearer. Forte, fortissimo, triple forte, and it was a masterpiece. The lovers in the melody had waited too long and now didn't even have each other to turn to. Sara, realizing the mastery of the irony that had been worked upon them, played with her soul in her breath, acting out the part of the lover who couldn't escape the death that waited. Grissom became the Italian lady who realized too late that her chance for happiness was over.

And then the final bars were upon them and the death of a love was like a stab in the heart. It was their swan song, and they sang it with every fiber of their being. The end, the suicide that had made the aria in question famous, hit them like a ton of bricks.

It was over. The curtains closed on two lonely figures, instruments still to their lips, and looking as if they had experienced their own personal epiphany.

Abrahams walked onstage, quivering from the raw emotion produced by the melodies. "Ladies and gentlemen, Gilbert Grissom and Sara Sidle." And the house came down, applauding and wiping away tears they hadn't realized they'd cried. The ovation lasted for a full three minutes, a spectacular feat in and of itself.

But did the performers notice? No.

The house lights came up, and the last trickle of people left the hall. They simply stood there, watching each other. Not until one amazingly subtle CSI appeared onstage did they even blink.

"Sara? Griss?" enquired a rather dazed Warrick, "That was _amazing_! I can't believe it!" Lost in rapture, he went on in detail about the piece for a good minute or two. When he finally noticed his audience hadn't heard a word, he decided it was time to remind them to breathe. "Er, Grissom? Sara? Can you even hear a word I'm saying?"

Apparently not.

_This is one hell of a pheromone crossfire! Time to move my ass,_ thought Warrick uneasily as he sidled towards Stage Left. Muttering his goodbyes and, he was pretty sure, some disclaimer of culpability, he left the stage as fast as his dignity would let him.

And then they were alone.

"Why?" A simple sentence from Sara, a not so simple answer required from Grissom.

"Why what? Why did I choose that piece? Why do I hide my private life from everyone? Why do I love you? Why was there coffee on the break room floor this morning? They're all valid extensions, Sara. What do you want me to tell you?" For the first time, he moved, shifting to pace the stage like a caged tiger. "I—"

"Gilbert Grissom, for a smart man, you are an idiot," she said calmly. "I don't want your 'my private life is private' lecture, because I already knew that. You've hid worse secrets than your playing from me, and I've survived them all. I only want to know why." Because she wanted answers and neither were suitably close to hand, she hoped that pressuring a suspect didn't require a badge and an interrogation room.

It didn't. And, she figured, he was the easiest suspect to crack since the one stoned out of his mind and dressed in a Lycra cardinal costume.

"What do you want from me, Sara? I picked a piece I loved, and I sure as Hell didn't know that you'd be there to know the other half. I hide my private life because I hate intrusions. I love you because when I get bogged down in the details, you see the light where I see the mud. And the reason there was coffee on the break room floor was because Greg started a fire in there by accident and Nick put it out with the Blue Hawaiian. That's all I can tell you, because I don't know the rest of it, and I'm terrified because I don't. Happy now?" Indulging his own hidden artistic temperament, he stalked off.

"Well, that was refreshing."

Startled at both the revelation and the voice, Sara turned around and, not for the first time, felt for her gun. With a glare, she paced softly over to Mr. Abrahams, ready to flay him alive for the best performance of her day job. "Explain in fifty words or less, or I take your baton and leave it somewhere uncomfortable."

Gulp. Deep breath. Another gulp. "It was Warrick's idea and he made me do it and I'm not responsible and _please don't kill me_!"

Sara just chuckled darkly at Abraham's amazingly out of character plea and followed Grissom out Stage Right, plotting silent revenge against her erstwhile coworker.

**.oOo.**

"Griss, wait!"

He just kept walking, willing Sara to turn around and forget him. Forget everything he just said, and forget that she ever came to Vegas for him. But she wouldn't, and she didn't. She just ran faster towards him. Damn.

"What was _that_ all about? You explain your entire life in six sentences or less and then leave me to figure it all out? Damn you, Grissom, what the hell?"

The hell with it. If she hates me, she hates me and I take that offer to go to Quantico.

He stopped. Turned around. Looked straight at her.

And then he kissed her.

With an almost amazing sense of comedic timing, fireworks went off overhead, and he wanted to laugh but he couldn't because he was too busy kissing the brunette in front of him. Too busy enjoying it before she slapped him and he became Sidle Enemy Number 1. Or at least, he would have been.

If she hadn't have kissed him back.

If anyone had had the misfortune of stepping into the parking lot of the Las Vegas Symphony Hall, they would have been most surprised. Two musicians, instruments thrown carelessly in the dirt, one case half-open and the other upside-down. And they looked like they couldn't have cared less. And the unfortunate person would've been stuck in the entrance for five or six minutes waiting to get in because the two were so wrapped up in each other that they wouldn't notice if Catherine Willows and Nicholas Stokes started doing a really bad version of the Time Warp right next to them.

But that's how true love goes, or so the story goes.

Pulling away slightly, Sara looked up at Grissom. "By the way, you know your favorite A/V CSI? Blame him."

Grissom just chuckled, and before pulling her back to him, had just one thing to say.

"Blame him? I'm going to make him my best man."


End file.
